Highlights

A message warning people about Blue Whale Challenge is viral on WhatsApp groups in Tamil Nadu.

Blue Whale Challenge made headlines with cases being reported from across India.

Experts believe this task-based challenge is just another hoax on the internet.

The first news report about a suicide allegedly as a result of the nefarious Blue Whale Challenge -- a task-based challenge that culminates in the death of the person accepting the challenge -- was from Mumbai, on July 30, 2017. Since then, many cases of kids committing suicides were reported from across India.

As experts rubbished the Blue Whale Challenge as another hoax on the internet, the number of cases of teenagers and young adults taking their own lives, and these suicides being linked to the challenge, rose.

Know all about the deadly #BlueWhaleChallenge game https://t.co/srFZ45YRBL

Now, a message that had gone viral last year is being circulated again on WhatsApp groups in Tamil Nadu. Here is the message that is being shared widely:

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TRUTHReports of police confirming youngsters having attempted the challenge, however less in number, could be found using a simple Google search with keywords “Police confirms Blue Whale Challenge”.

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What is not true is the message that is being circulated on social media platforms and instant messaging applications. There are many misconceptions about the challenge propagated through factually-incorrect messages.

The Blue Whale Challenge is no hoax. Here are two different conversations on Facebook to prove teenagers (identity withheld) were keen to know about more about / attempt the Blue Whale Challenge:

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ORIGIN OF THE BLUE WHALE CHALLENGEThe Blue Whale Challenge is a task-based challenge that requires the person who chooses to accept the challenge to perform 50 tasks, the last one being committing suicide.

It was created by Philipp Budeikin, a Russian, in 2013 and in May 2017, Budeikin was sentenced to three years in prison. Budeikin, a sound-engineer, had accepted that he deliberately led teenagers into suicide, and claimed to have given them "warmth" and "understanding". Budeikin was someone who considered himself some sort of vigilante and said in an interview that he was eliminating people "who do not represent any value, cause harm or will cause harm to the society".

HOW IT WORKSThe Blue Whale Challenge has two participants - a curator and a victim. The curator scans the social media profiles of many people, mostly teenagers, chooses people who have either made their interest in the challenge clear, or those who seem curious, and contacts them via personal messages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.

There used to be hashtags that could be used by those who are interested in the challenge on all these social media platforms to highlight their curiosity.

The Blue Whale Challenge is not an application that can be downloaded to your smart devices. It works purely based on the personal interaction between the curator and the victim.

The message that is going viral, hence, is an absolute fake. It says a “Blue Whale game” will be
downloaded to the user’s phone if a call from a certain number is answered. This fake news found its origin in a game that is available on Google Play Store by the name of Blue Whale but this is a simulation game and has nothing to do with the challenge.

The curator, who should be basically understood as a "complete stranger" to the victim, indulges in long conversations over time. Most of the victims are impressionable teenagers who are bullied and / or ill-treated in life and grappling with low self-esteem.

TASKSBudeikin was a 22-year-old but from the way he designed the challenge, it is safe to assume that he understood human psychology. The initial tasks assigned to the victims seem harmless, but these have long-lasting effects on the human mind and body.

For instance, waking up at 4.20 AM is one of the initial tasks, and one that continues through the course of the challenge. Psychologists have confirmed that the idea behind this is to disrupt the normal sleep cycle of the victim.

Budeikin, a sound-engineer, knew how to use disturbing music and visuals to disorientate his victims. The victims are made to wake up at odd hours and are asked to listen to eerie yet catchy music, and violent videos. Curator, in the meanwhile, becomes someone who the victim is comfortable with, and someone who motivates him / her to do things they did not do / dare to do earlier. This however, comes in the form of dangerous tasks.

For instance, the curator asks the victim to travel alone. There have been news reports from Kerala about a teenager, who never travelled without his parents, going to a distant place all alone to apparently see a beach. Another example could be the curator asking a victim, who is hydrophobic, to jump into a river. There are news reports to verify this as well.

Here is another sample conversation with another teenager (identity withheld) who had taken up the challenge:

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The victim, as per psychologists, takes up these challenges to prove to themselves and to the society that they are valuable / daring enough to deserve to live.

With time, the tasks get more serious. Alienating oneself, inflicting wounds on the body come up at this stage. This is a method of introducing the victims, who are by then emotionally vulnerable, to non-suicidal self injury. Often, the victims ends up enjoying harming themselves and that is exactly what the curator wants.

By the 15th or 20th task, the victim would have become isolated, disorientated, physically weak because of the lack of sound sleep, pessimistic towards life and society, attached to the curator, more daring, and comfortable with physical pain.

The curator, by this time, would have gotten access to the victim’s life and personal information like address, parents’ names, phone numbers and occupation, their office addresses, whereabouts of other loved ones etc.. The curators could have also asked for nude images of the victims. Psychologists suspect the curators would use these details to blackmail the victims, in case they come into their senses to withdraw from the challenge, to continue.

This is also the reason why teenagers, who accept the challenge and get in touch with the curators thinking they would never commit suicide listening to a stranger on the internet, are forced to kill themselves.

MYTH BUSTINGBlue Whale Challenge is
- not a “game”.

- not an “application” available on Google Play Store and Apple Appstore.
- not something that can be “downloaded” to your smartphones.

Blue Whale Challenge does not have a “dedicated website” or a “link” that would give you access to the game.

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